Richard S. Wheeler's Blog, page 6
December 7, 2015
A Big Day
Tomorrow, December 8, marks the publication of my new Forge hardcover, Anything Goes. My fifteen author copies arrived today from Forge. They look fine. The book was carefully packaged and its publication is announced on the Tor-Macmillan website. I am hoping for some good reviews.
It is the first print novel I have had published in three years, in part due to health and other troubles. So it means a lot to me. I love to hold the book in my hand, this new creation of mine, and the feeling runs just as deep as when I hefted my first novel, written for Doubleday, and could hardly believe this really was happening to me.
This is packaged as a western, which is how readers know where to look for me. The hero, August Beausoleil, is shown with a holstered revolver, which is odd, considering that he is a New York City theatrical impresario. But if that is what it takes to draw readers to my orbit, that is fine with me.
This is the story of a small, struggling vaudeville troupe hitting isolated mining towns in the Northwest in 1896. Such towns were starved for entertainment, and felt cut off from the world. They built opera houses and invited troupes to play in them.
This novel pursues a quest I began long ago, which was to free western fiction from the tedious gun fights and gunman themes that became rigid orthodoxy in western fiction. I wanted to portray the larger and richer West, and believe I succeeded. But I have failed to make a dent in the thematic orthodoxy of Western fiction, and my stories sell in small numbers compared to the giants of gunfight orthodoxy, which sell gunfight stories by the hundreds of thousands to readers who enjoy butchery and want nothing to do with a larger West.
It's not about lack of bravery or courage or determination, or any of those traits that settlers needed to put down roots in a new land. My hero, a theatrical entrepreneur, is as courageous as any twitchy-fingered gunman who murders thirty or forty of fifty anonymous cowboys in a typical gunman western. My stories are about something larger; what traits were needed to bring people safely into a new life in the vast, unrelenting West.
So, compared to the vast publishing success of traditional westerns, I have failed. The flood of gunman and killer stories continues unabated. But I have also succeeded. Some of my readers will come away from my stories knowing the West wasn't just about bullets.
It is the first print novel I have had published in three years, in part due to health and other troubles. So it means a lot to me. I love to hold the book in my hand, this new creation of mine, and the feeling runs just as deep as when I hefted my first novel, written for Doubleday, and could hardly believe this really was happening to me.
This is packaged as a western, which is how readers know where to look for me. The hero, August Beausoleil, is shown with a holstered revolver, which is odd, considering that he is a New York City theatrical impresario. But if that is what it takes to draw readers to my orbit, that is fine with me.
This is the story of a small, struggling vaudeville troupe hitting isolated mining towns in the Northwest in 1896. Such towns were starved for entertainment, and felt cut off from the world. They built opera houses and invited troupes to play in them.
This novel pursues a quest I began long ago, which was to free western fiction from the tedious gun fights and gunman themes that became rigid orthodoxy in western fiction. I wanted to portray the larger and richer West, and believe I succeeded. But I have failed to make a dent in the thematic orthodoxy of Western fiction, and my stories sell in small numbers compared to the giants of gunfight orthodoxy, which sell gunfight stories by the hundreds of thousands to readers who enjoy butchery and want nothing to do with a larger West.
It's not about lack of bravery or courage or determination, or any of those traits that settlers needed to put down roots in a new land. My hero, a theatrical entrepreneur, is as courageous as any twitchy-fingered gunman who murders thirty or forty of fifty anonymous cowboys in a typical gunman western. My stories are about something larger; what traits were needed to bring people safely into a new life in the vast, unrelenting West.
So, compared to the vast publishing success of traditional westerns, I have failed. The flood of gunman and killer stories continues unabated. But I have also succeeded. Some of my readers will come away from my stories knowing the West wasn't just about bullets.
December 4, 2015
The Literary Narcotic
I've read yet another pious essay, this one in the New York Review of Books, about the dangers lurking in commercial success for literary novelists. In this case, the author warned that Jonathan Franzen (and others) is in peril of losing his literary stature because commercial success breeds formulaic writing. We can't have that, can we? If we are serious novelists, we must adhere to the lofty criteria of critics and academics about what generates a fine novel, and carefully eschew the dark temptations of the seething world of commercial fiction. O tempora. O mores!
In the real world, far from the rarefied air of aesthetic elitism, things don't work out that way. The bulk of great English-language fiction began life as commercial storytelling, and was so beloved that it lingered on, its elevated status growing steadily, until it ended up on the must-read lists of academics teaching various sorts of English literature.
It's not hard to discover. Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the greatest of English-language novelists, wrote for broad readerships. So did Mark Twain and Jack London. So did Charles Dickens. The most likely candidate in our times to reach that exalted status is Colleen McCullough, author of The Thorn Birds, which sold, what? Ten million copies?
Yet few critics or literary novelists or academics will acknowledge that reality. They prefer the narcotic, which is why their views are gradually stultifying English literature.
In the real world, far from the rarefied air of aesthetic elitism, things don't work out that way. The bulk of great English-language fiction began life as commercial storytelling, and was so beloved that it lingered on, its elevated status growing steadily, until it ended up on the must-read lists of academics teaching various sorts of English literature.
It's not hard to discover. Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the greatest of English-language novelists, wrote for broad readerships. So did Mark Twain and Jack London. So did Charles Dickens. The most likely candidate in our times to reach that exalted status is Colleen McCullough, author of The Thorn Birds, which sold, what? Ten million copies?
Yet few critics or literary novelists or academics will acknowledge that reality. They prefer the narcotic, which is why their views are gradually stultifying English literature.
November 30, 2015
Terry Johnston
It's been almost fifteen years since Terry Johnston died in Billings. My wife, Sue, and his wife, Vanette, were each holding one of his hands. He died at a young age, of cancer, after writing best-selling novels, one after another, that dealt with the fur trade and the Indian wars. His spectacular sales and income were based on mythic fiction about the West. It was often florid and overwrought, but nonetheless powerful.
People from all over the world gathered at his funeral. I was there. It was an amazing tribute to a man whose work was largely scorned by academics and critics and other writers. He would not let his work be edited. On one occasion I was his editor, and he rejected everything except corrections of his spelling. But I was not alone. He was difficult. At the same time he had a great heart and a genius for promoting his work. When he sold books, he would don tawny buckskins, spread out a handsome buffalo robe and some Indian artifacts on a large table, and soon would be surrounded by people laying out good money for a signed book. Or, often, half a dozen signed books.
He made a lot of money for Bantam and St. Martin's, and in turn lived a comfortable, affluent life. He acquired a fine understanding of both the fur trade and the Indian wars, and would organize expeditions to battlefields, which only added to his luster.
His secret was to make his historical characters mythic, larger than life. He grew into his vocation over the years, and eventually was writing powerful and disciplined novels that did not shy from questions of life and death, and our purposes on earth. He foresaw his death, and in his final novel, which appeared within days of his dying, he wrote about the death of his central character, Scratch, and facing death bravely. At the time of his death, his doctors and nurses gathered in his room, and his wife, Vanette, read the passage in his new novel about his demise, and there were tears as his caregivers said goodbye to him.
My relationship with him was troubled, but as he lay dying in his hospital bed, unable to speak, we clasped hands and held on, and in that brief passage we set our reservations aside ever more.
Sue and I would visit his grave in Billings on each Memorial Day. It was often burdened with flowers.I don't get to Billings any more, but I know where his grave is.
People from all over the world gathered at his funeral. I was there. It was an amazing tribute to a man whose work was largely scorned by academics and critics and other writers. He would not let his work be edited. On one occasion I was his editor, and he rejected everything except corrections of his spelling. But I was not alone. He was difficult. At the same time he had a great heart and a genius for promoting his work. When he sold books, he would don tawny buckskins, spread out a handsome buffalo robe and some Indian artifacts on a large table, and soon would be surrounded by people laying out good money for a signed book. Or, often, half a dozen signed books.
He made a lot of money for Bantam and St. Martin's, and in turn lived a comfortable, affluent life. He acquired a fine understanding of both the fur trade and the Indian wars, and would organize expeditions to battlefields, which only added to his luster.
His secret was to make his historical characters mythic, larger than life. He grew into his vocation over the years, and eventually was writing powerful and disciplined novels that did not shy from questions of life and death, and our purposes on earth. He foresaw his death, and in his final novel, which appeared within days of his dying, he wrote about the death of his central character, Scratch, and facing death bravely. At the time of his death, his doctors and nurses gathered in his room, and his wife, Vanette, read the passage in his new novel about his demise, and there were tears as his caregivers said goodbye to him.
My relationship with him was troubled, but as he lay dying in his hospital bed, unable to speak, we clasped hands and held on, and in that brief passage we set our reservations aside ever more.
Sue and I would visit his grave in Billings on each Memorial Day. It was often burdened with flowers.I don't get to Billings any more, but I know where his grave is.
November 29, 2015
Too Many Buttons
I attempted to watch a DVD film on my TV last eve, with a friend, and ran into serious troubles trying to make it happen. It took fifteen minutes of fiddling, and only a lucky coincidence of hitting the right buttons got the film underway.
Ever since the cable company switched over to high definition TV, things have gotten out of hand. I have three remotes. The Sanyo, which operates my DVD player, has thirty-some buttons. My Magnavox TV remote had another thirty-some, and the cable company's master remote offers over fifty buttons. The task was to choose the right source, on the TV remote, and get the DVD player lined up, and get the cable company out of the way. It took some doing, and instructions were contradictory and unreliable.
After we had at last watched the film, it took another gargantuan effort to return the TV to its cable input, once again guessing at the sourcing and all the rest. I finally managed that long after my guest had left. I was frustrated, bewildered, and angry.
I had asked my cable provider, Charter, for the minimum TV service, because network shows are all I watch, but they no longer offer a minimum package. You have to buy the whole deal, which for me comes to $92 a month. I suppose there are a few people who do want all the options, but I have yet to find any. Most would like a few favorite cable stations at an appropriate price, but that is no longer an option. Some people I talk to compare it to cutting a narrow path through a jungle. They can operate their TVs (and computers) only by sticking to the path and avoiding the jungle.
I do have an option, and will probably make use of it. Billings network stations have a booster antenna here which makes network broadcasting available for free. Just by putting up an antenna, I can receive ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS. I may do that. One thing about market economies is that they offer options to people who cannot find what they want from the quasi-monopolies that are attempting to control as much advertising and programming as possible on our computer and TV screens. Charter, by failing to offer what people want, is ultimately doomed to decline or fail, while some new company, using different technology, will be flooded with new customers who enjoy receiving what they want, and paying an appropriate price for it.
Ever since the cable company switched over to high definition TV, things have gotten out of hand. I have three remotes. The Sanyo, which operates my DVD player, has thirty-some buttons. My Magnavox TV remote had another thirty-some, and the cable company's master remote offers over fifty buttons. The task was to choose the right source, on the TV remote, and get the DVD player lined up, and get the cable company out of the way. It took some doing, and instructions were contradictory and unreliable.
After we had at last watched the film, it took another gargantuan effort to return the TV to its cable input, once again guessing at the sourcing and all the rest. I finally managed that long after my guest had left. I was frustrated, bewildered, and angry.
I had asked my cable provider, Charter, for the minimum TV service, because network shows are all I watch, but they no longer offer a minimum package. You have to buy the whole deal, which for me comes to $92 a month. I suppose there are a few people who do want all the options, but I have yet to find any. Most would like a few favorite cable stations at an appropriate price, but that is no longer an option. Some people I talk to compare it to cutting a narrow path through a jungle. They can operate their TVs (and computers) only by sticking to the path and avoiding the jungle.
I do have an option, and will probably make use of it. Billings network stations have a booster antenna here which makes network broadcasting available for free. Just by putting up an antenna, I can receive ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS. I may do that. One thing about market economies is that they offer options to people who cannot find what they want from the quasi-monopolies that are attempting to control as much advertising and programming as possible on our computer and TV screens. Charter, by failing to offer what people want, is ultimately doomed to decline or fail, while some new company, using different technology, will be flooded with new customers who enjoy receiving what they want, and paying an appropriate price for it.
November 28, 2015
Reversions
Back in the seventies and eighties, when I was launching a new life as a commercial novelist, the gospel was to revert your titles as soon as possible, and work hard at it because it was good business. It's your title; you own the copyright; as soon as a publisher is done licensing it and it's out of print, get it back and resell it.
It made a lot of sense. I assiduously applied for reversions when licenses expired, and usually got my titles back. On a rare occasion, one mass-market publisher reprinted a three-book series rather than surrendering rights, but usually I was able to retrieve, and resell, my titles.
Series were a different matter. Publishers nurture series because they have built-in readerships and can be republished over the years. So publishers rarely revert series titles. All that made sense; it was part of operating a writing business. When the internet offered self-publishing opportunities at sites like Amazon and BN, it seemed to make even more sense. The author could package the titles, get them out, promote them. The publishing world was full of stories about successful self-publishers.
I have kept about thirty reverted titles in print at various sites, and have made a few of them available in paper as well. But they don't earn much.
Meanwhile, Forge has reissued my Skye's West series as doubles, thick paperbacks listing at ten bucks, and I am starting to see returns on those as well as reissues of other titles.
Guess what. These Skye's West paperback and other reissues will eventually earn more than the combined income from all my reverted titles through all the years. I'm not talking about a few thousand dollars. I'm talking about many thousands more by the time these reprints have run their course.
It was the wisdom of the day, at one time, to revert titles, get rights back. But times change. If I had left these titles in the hands of their publishers, I would be more affluent than I am now.
It made a lot of sense. I assiduously applied for reversions when licenses expired, and usually got my titles back. On a rare occasion, one mass-market publisher reprinted a three-book series rather than surrendering rights, but usually I was able to retrieve, and resell, my titles.
Series were a different matter. Publishers nurture series because they have built-in readerships and can be republished over the years. So publishers rarely revert series titles. All that made sense; it was part of operating a writing business. When the internet offered self-publishing opportunities at sites like Amazon and BN, it seemed to make even more sense. The author could package the titles, get them out, promote them. The publishing world was full of stories about successful self-publishers.
I have kept about thirty reverted titles in print at various sites, and have made a few of them available in paper as well. But they don't earn much.
Meanwhile, Forge has reissued my Skye's West series as doubles, thick paperbacks listing at ten bucks, and I am starting to see returns on those as well as reissues of other titles.
Guess what. These Skye's West paperback and other reissues will eventually earn more than the combined income from all my reverted titles through all the years. I'm not talking about a few thousand dollars. I'm talking about many thousands more by the time these reprints have run their course.
It was the wisdom of the day, at one time, to revert titles, get rights back. But times change. If I had left these titles in the hands of their publishers, I would be more affluent than I am now.
November 27, 2015
The Spastic Internet
I read recently that the Internet has lost about half of its utility, largely because the costs of security keep intruding upon the gains in utility. I should add also that the massive amount of advertising is choking the system. I sometimes cannot look at some sites, like The Daily Beast, or Huffington or MSN without getting into a paralysis in which I am confronted by a debugging script I must follow to end the blockage.
The Internet, combined with the marvels of computerized writing, editing, accounting, communications, and sorting, made life easier, especially for a writer. Not long ago I could complete and edit a manuscript, easily incorporate my revisions, and send it off to my editors. The editorial interchange could also be done online, and I would incorporate my editors' alterations and corrections, and follow their suggestions, and return my product as an edited manuscript ready for production. And of course emails along the way would inform me of deadlines, or the need for jacket copy, or remainder opportunities, etc.
All that has changed. The internet is now so sclerotic that I cannot count on reaching a site, or bringing up the material I wish to see, or mailing my responses. There are long pauses, rejections, demands for passwords I didn't know existed, etc., which sometimes force me to call my provider for help, or hire an expert to come to my house and untangle my computer.
In short, the internet is becoming less useful. It is still vital, and far from dying, but security and advertising have all but paralyzed it. All those advertising people who sit around thinking up click-bait stories are ultimately destroying an entire medium, and their efforts will bring them less and less return. Who wants to click on something that turns out not to be journalism at all, but an excuse to run a new ad every few seconds?
I recently upgraded my computer to Windows 10, which is mostly likable, but it adds layers of opening screens and decision-making to the mix, and I can find no way to escape them. In short, Microsoft is just as invasive as the amassed advertisers eager to batter my privacy any way they can manage.
So dealing with the internet is increasingly self-defeating, and I am expecting to return to using my computer as a typewriter, and sending printed manuscripts by mail to my publishers, if that is what it takes to deal with a spastic, sclerotic medium ruined by greed. What was once cheap is expensive. The last time I needed to get tech help, because I could not connect to the Internet, the bill was ninety dollars.
The question is not whether the security and advertising troubles will kill the value of the Internet, but only how fast, and when. Meanwhile I am enjoying sending hand-written letters to friends and colleagues.
Greed defeats itself, just as greed and malice are destroying the Internet.
The Internet, combined with the marvels of computerized writing, editing, accounting, communications, and sorting, made life easier, especially for a writer. Not long ago I could complete and edit a manuscript, easily incorporate my revisions, and send it off to my editors. The editorial interchange could also be done online, and I would incorporate my editors' alterations and corrections, and follow their suggestions, and return my product as an edited manuscript ready for production. And of course emails along the way would inform me of deadlines, or the need for jacket copy, or remainder opportunities, etc.
All that has changed. The internet is now so sclerotic that I cannot count on reaching a site, or bringing up the material I wish to see, or mailing my responses. There are long pauses, rejections, demands for passwords I didn't know existed, etc., which sometimes force me to call my provider for help, or hire an expert to come to my house and untangle my computer.
In short, the internet is becoming less useful. It is still vital, and far from dying, but security and advertising have all but paralyzed it. All those advertising people who sit around thinking up click-bait stories are ultimately destroying an entire medium, and their efforts will bring them less and less return. Who wants to click on something that turns out not to be journalism at all, but an excuse to run a new ad every few seconds?
I recently upgraded my computer to Windows 10, which is mostly likable, but it adds layers of opening screens and decision-making to the mix, and I can find no way to escape them. In short, Microsoft is just as invasive as the amassed advertisers eager to batter my privacy any way they can manage.
So dealing with the internet is increasingly self-defeating, and I am expecting to return to using my computer as a typewriter, and sending printed manuscripts by mail to my publishers, if that is what it takes to deal with a spastic, sclerotic medium ruined by greed. What was once cheap is expensive. The last time I needed to get tech help, because I could not connect to the Internet, the bill was ninety dollars.
The question is not whether the security and advertising troubles will kill the value of the Internet, but only how fast, and when. Meanwhile I am enjoying sending hand-written letters to friends and colleagues.
Greed defeats itself, just as greed and malice are destroying the Internet.
November 24, 2015
The Phenomenon
I became curious about the record-setting sales of a new musical album by Adele, a vocalist I had scarcely heard of. So I played Hello, the one she had put on YouTube as a way of promoting her work.
She's rather pretty, except for her inch-long claws, but she never holds still long enough for anyone to appreciate her beauty, because she is too busy shaking her hair around, trying to look windswept. She has an odd voice but I rather liked it, although she would rank low among my favorite female singers.
I certainly had my doubts about the music. The lyrics were, shall we say, adolescent. I could not find an adult thought in them. And she used editing and cinematography as crutches, a constant barrage of images that hid her performance, so no observer could see her actually singing. That's a pity. We have no way of knowing whether she is a true and distinguished performing artist. The various crutches interfere with her art.
She will make a lot of money, but I doubt that she will last long, because Adele really isn't there, on the disc. People are simply buying a lot of special effects. She will laugh all the way to the bank, which is fine. She calculated the ways that might bring her a pocketful of cash, and some temporary acclaim, but that will pass. In my eighty years I've seen a lot of empty people command the stage for a brief time, and then vanish.
Meanwhile the truly great artists, who need no gimmicks and who are magnetic under a spotlight, without all the junk, will be there, year after year.
She's rather pretty, except for her inch-long claws, but she never holds still long enough for anyone to appreciate her beauty, because she is too busy shaking her hair around, trying to look windswept. She has an odd voice but I rather liked it, although she would rank low among my favorite female singers.
I certainly had my doubts about the music. The lyrics were, shall we say, adolescent. I could not find an adult thought in them. And she used editing and cinematography as crutches, a constant barrage of images that hid her performance, so no observer could see her actually singing. That's a pity. We have no way of knowing whether she is a true and distinguished performing artist. The various crutches interfere with her art.
She will make a lot of money, but I doubt that she will last long, because Adele really isn't there, on the disc. People are simply buying a lot of special effects. She will laugh all the way to the bank, which is fine. She calculated the ways that might bring her a pocketful of cash, and some temporary acclaim, but that will pass. In my eighty years I've seen a lot of empty people command the stage for a brief time, and then vanish.
Meanwhile the truly great artists, who need no gimmicks and who are magnetic under a spotlight, without all the junk, will be there, year after year.
November 15, 2015
She Fascinates Me
By all accounts, Taylor Swift is a kind, gracious, stable young lady. But I've noticed something odd over the last several years. She keeps changing her appearance every couple of weeks, as if she is looking for something she will never find. She regularly changes hairdo, hair color, brows, eye treatment, lips, lipstick color, and for a little while she is a new version of herself. Put in another way, there is no Taylor Swift.
There must be, somewhere, a mountain of discarded lipsticks and eyebrow pencils, abandoned versions of Taylor Swift. See for yourself: Google some Taylor Swift images from over the years and compare them.You'll see blonde, copper, streaked, and brunette hair; black-lined eyes that look like rat-holes, a fresh clean face, hair bobs and bangs, natural lips and fat lips that rival Angelina Jolie's.
I haven't the faintest idea why she does this. Is she dissatisfied with her looks? Is she searching for a self? Is she trying to appeal to new audiences? Does she fear she's boring? I just don't know. I hope she finds what she is looking for, but I doubt that she will. She's not a particularly good musician; shouting songs is no substitute for vocal skills. Maybe she wants to divert us from that underlying weakness.
One of the oddities in all this is that the young woman who probably spends more time objectifying herself than any other woman in the entire world doesn't seem to incur the wrath of feminists. I believe that feminists want women to be seen as whole persons, not as objects. But here's Taylor Swift, devoting a large part of every day turning herself into a series of objects. I wonder why feminists haven't put her at the top of their list of bad examples.
What robs a woman of her real beauty is emptiness. No perfection of features can help a woman who hasn't much to offer within herself, whether it is intelligence, wisdom, command, maternal love, or sense of who she is. Empty little girls come and go across the musical and entertainment stage but women who have a rich interior self, intelligence and grace, only grow more handsome as they age, and end up utterly beautiful.
My hope for Miss Swift is that some day, as she weathers life, she will be beautiful.
There must be, somewhere, a mountain of discarded lipsticks and eyebrow pencils, abandoned versions of Taylor Swift. See for yourself: Google some Taylor Swift images from over the years and compare them.You'll see blonde, copper, streaked, and brunette hair; black-lined eyes that look like rat-holes, a fresh clean face, hair bobs and bangs, natural lips and fat lips that rival Angelina Jolie's.
I haven't the faintest idea why she does this. Is she dissatisfied with her looks? Is she searching for a self? Is she trying to appeal to new audiences? Does she fear she's boring? I just don't know. I hope she finds what she is looking for, but I doubt that she will. She's not a particularly good musician; shouting songs is no substitute for vocal skills. Maybe she wants to divert us from that underlying weakness.
One of the oddities in all this is that the young woman who probably spends more time objectifying herself than any other woman in the entire world doesn't seem to incur the wrath of feminists. I believe that feminists want women to be seen as whole persons, not as objects. But here's Taylor Swift, devoting a large part of every day turning herself into a series of objects. I wonder why feminists haven't put her at the top of their list of bad examples.
What robs a woman of her real beauty is emptiness. No perfection of features can help a woman who hasn't much to offer within herself, whether it is intelligence, wisdom, command, maternal love, or sense of who she is. Empty little girls come and go across the musical and entertainment stage but women who have a rich interior self, intelligence and grace, only grow more handsome as they age, and end up utterly beautiful.
My hope for Miss Swift is that some day, as she weathers life, she will be beautiful.
October 4, 2015
Dale Walker's Progress
I heard from one of my closest and most treasured friends, Dale L. Walker. He was calling from his room in an El Paso hospital, where he is recovering from open heart surgery. I was very glad to hear his voice. He is my age, and has had severe health problems, mostly pulmonary. But he was able to speak with me a few minutes today, and asked me to let our friends know he is gaining ground.
I've known him since the early eighties. He has been my editor on many occasions, and is largely responsible for my success. His discerning eye caught the weaknesses in my texts and he greatly improved everything he edited.
He had been the director of Texas Western Press at the university, but he is better known as one of the finest popular historians of our times, if not the finest. His balanced studies of many western figures are legendary. He has written valuable and successful studies of the conquest of California and the arrival of settlers into the Pacific West. These include Pacific Destiny, Bear Flag Rising, and El Dorado.
He has written widely about such things as the Spanish-American War (The Boys of '98), the pioneering war correspondent Januarius MacGahan, and Calamity Jane, and has put together numerous anthologies of western literature. His prose is transparent, grounded, lucid, and balanced. He brings keen historical judgment to his work.
He is as fine an editor as ever lived, and brought his great ability to the formidable task of turning my prose into something publishable. He is the recipient of the Owen Wister Award, and is in the Western Writers Hall of Fame.
His friends and admirers will be damned glad to know he is gaining ground. He says he has a long way to go, and it will be a tough road, but I know he will make it.
I've known him since the early eighties. He has been my editor on many occasions, and is largely responsible for my success. His discerning eye caught the weaknesses in my texts and he greatly improved everything he edited.
He had been the director of Texas Western Press at the university, but he is better known as one of the finest popular historians of our times, if not the finest. His balanced studies of many western figures are legendary. He has written valuable and successful studies of the conquest of California and the arrival of settlers into the Pacific West. These include Pacific Destiny, Bear Flag Rising, and El Dorado.
He has written widely about such things as the Spanish-American War (The Boys of '98), the pioneering war correspondent Januarius MacGahan, and Calamity Jane, and has put together numerous anthologies of western literature. His prose is transparent, grounded, lucid, and balanced. He brings keen historical judgment to his work.
He is as fine an editor as ever lived, and brought his great ability to the formidable task of turning my prose into something publishable. He is the recipient of the Owen Wister Award, and is in the Western Writers Hall of Fame.
His friends and admirers will be damned glad to know he is gaining ground. He says he has a long way to go, and it will be a tough road, but I know he will make it.
September 2, 2015
The Alpenglow
Livingston's literary heyday is long gone, and many of those writers and actors who flocked here have left. But this railroad town was changed by all of that, and the aura lingers on. Tom McGuane has bought a costly home in Florida. Peter Fonda moved back to California. So did Russell Chatham. Jeff Bridges still has a place and so does Michael Keaton, but they visit here only briefly. Sam Peckinpah is dead. So is Warren Oates. Margot Kidder stays on. Various writers are retired or semi-retired. Richard Brautigan is dead. Tim Cahill is living quietly after a narrow escape during his last adventure. Some of those who visited regularly, such as Peter Matthiessen, are gone. Nothing written here during the literary heyday has been added to Montana's famed literary canon by academics.
The parade of news people, publicists, editors, agents, publishers, autograph-seekers, and pilgrims has all but vanished. The film-makers have returned to California. You don't find stories about Livingston in national papers or literary journals now. The town has moved away from fiction and film, toward nonfiction and music. Scott McMillion produces an exceptionally fine quarterly here. The fire-scarred mountains endure, and the clear, clean Yellowstone River water follows its eternal trip to the sea. The black bears still look for apples in the fall. I've lived here longer than any other place, including my childhood home, and I am content. So are my writing friends. We flocked in, and found a good life and good company.
The parade of news people, publicists, editors, agents, publishers, autograph-seekers, and pilgrims has all but vanished. The film-makers have returned to California. You don't find stories about Livingston in national papers or literary journals now. The town has moved away from fiction and film, toward nonfiction and music. Scott McMillion produces an exceptionally fine quarterly here. The fire-scarred mountains endure, and the clear, clean Yellowstone River water follows its eternal trip to the sea. The black bears still look for apples in the fall. I've lived here longer than any other place, including my childhood home, and I am content. So are my writing friends. We flocked in, and found a good life and good company.
